Archive for Unit 2 Concept Reviews

http://teambulldog.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/astroturf-public-relations-unit-2-week-6-concept/A company, online web site, or even a government can get caught doing something called astroturfing public relations. Astroturfing public relations is where an organization can make a positive impression about itself by using people, which are sometimes bribed with money or other perks, to positively comment about their organization. For example online companies have been caught bribing their own employees to purchase items and then leave a positive comment about how well the online company worked so that the public will see the positive comments and trust the online company.

Video News Release – Maggieh22, Team Bulldog

http://teambulldog.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/video-news-releases/A video news release is a video that is made by a PR or advertising agency. It is made to look as if it is coming from a reliable news source by using specific backgrounds and speakers. They are made to shape the opinion of the public about a specific person, product, or industry. Some people believe that the making and usage of these videos is deceptive because the viewers do not always know that they are a video news release!

Cause Marketing- is a type of marketing that involves the cooperative efforts for a profit business and non-profit organization for mutual benefit.

Example- this website gives many examples of cause marketing. One of the examples that are talked about is that a company’s employees can volunteer like at a blood drive or homeless shelter. Instead of the company giving money the employees are going to give their time. This way the company will get noticed for the profit part of the buisness but also helping out non-profit organizations.

Focus Groups – Leslie T, The Pandas Blog

http://thepandasblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/week-6-concept-focus-groups/A focus group is an important aspect of research in public relations in which a small group of people that make up the target population are interviewed and are asked to discuss their thoughts, beliefs, and opinions about a certain product, company, etc. Focus groups provide public relations with a lot of feedback and generally much more in-depth responses than with research gathered from a survey.

Diffusion of innovation is a theory that attempts to explain how, why, and at what rate technology and new ideas spread through a culture. It is also referred to as the ‘multi-step flow theory’, because it goes a bit further than the two-step flow theory.The theory predicts that interpersonal contacts and media provide information as well as influence opinion. In particular, it focuses on the circumstances that increase or decrease the likelihood that a new product, idea or practice will be adopted by members of a culture. It has been argued that there are four stages involved here: invention, diffusion, time, and consequences.

Elaboration Likelihood Model – Sara B, Sexy Six6

http://sexysix6.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/astroturf-public-relations-by-kenzie-a/Astroturf is a “fake grassroot organization” used to mask the true sponsers behind the organization. An authentic grassroots organization is a group of individuals who share a concerned interest and come together to try to make a change. So, a “fake grassroots organization” is actually an organization sponsered by companies that have a hidden agenda behind the change they are trying to implement. The example in the book describes an astroturf group called Get Health Reform Right that was “caught paying online gamers in virtual currency to send prewritten, antireform emails to congress.” It was later found out that Get Health Reform Right was actually an astroturf public relations alliance funded by 10 of the country’s largest insurers. This means that the group was hiding its real sponsers from the public because the public would be less likely to support the agenda if it knew that it was only intended to benefit the insurance companies.

Communication verbally and non-verbally can express completely different, but equally essential parts of communication. For instance, the tone in someone’s voice can hint towards the mood they are in. If someone is usually energetic and peppy, but today they are quiet and isolated, they may be in a bad mood, sad, depressed, etc. and there are ways of detecting it through communication. Just as you can with verbal communication, there are also non-verbal ways of expressing the same emotions and feelings as well. A simple smile can express your mood. Half-open eyes and an almost dead facial expression? They are probably tired. This sounds like common sense to us because these are things we find each and every day in our lives, whether we realize it or not.

This is a photo I took myself of a man (right) who was preaching on our campus about Christianity and homosexuality, deeming it “evil” and thought it to be “demonizing”. A fellow student felt the urge to create the sign, and stood next to him in protest. Now, what can we gather from this photo? The shirt that the old man is wearing certainly will raise some eyebrows and garner some attention. This is non-verbal communication. He is speaking towards students and trying to verbally send a message to them. The tone, along with the words that he was speaking sent a message that didn’t quite sit with people the right way, including myself. The male on the left looks very happy, actually, as he holds this sign up next to the old man. The sign communicates with the viewer as well. Many photographs can communicate in many different ways in order to get a certain message across.